DA 

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UC  SOUTHE 

SHEEHY-SKEFFINGTON 
FORGOTTEN  SMALL  NATION 

5 

ALITY 

IRELAND  AND  THE  WAR 

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University  of  California 

Southern  Regional 

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OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

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Harry  Lang 

given  by- 
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SM/i\V<!VfA\fy^VAt'^ 


A  Forgotten  Small  Nationality 

Ireland  and  the  War 
By  F.  SHEEHY  SKEFFINGTON 


British  Militarism  As  I  Have 
Known  It 

By  HANNA  SHEEHY  SKEFFINGTON 


WW  ww  w  w  fcvv  w  w  w  w  www  wwwwwwwww  i\ 


A  FORGOTTEN  SMALL  NATIONALITY 

IRELAND  AND  THE  WAR 
By  F.  SHEEHY  SKEFFINGTON 


BRITISH  MILIATARISM  AS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  IT 
By  HANNA  SHEEHY  SHEFFINGTON 


The  Donnelly  Press 

164  East  37th  Street 

New  York  City 


-DA 


A  FORGOTTEN  SMALL  NATIONALITY 

Ireland  and  the  War 

By  F.  SHEEHY  SKEFFINGTON 

The  following  article  by  Mr.  Francis  Sheehy  Skeffington  is  reprinted  by 
permission  of  the  Century  Magazine  Company.  Four  months  after  it  ap- 
peared, the  American  newspapers  published  the  startling  news  that  the 
author  was  one  of  many  civilians  deliberately  murdered  by  English  troops 
and  officers,  during  the  uprising  in  Dublin  of  Easter  week.  As  he  was  a 
pacifist,  and  had  lent  his  best  efforts  to  the  quieting  of  the  populace  and  the 
prevention  of  looting,  this  "Prussianization  of  Ireland  created  consternation" 
when  the  appeal  of  his  widow  for  mercy  for  other  innocent  husbands  was 
read  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

A  scholar  and  a  litterateur,  Mr.  Skeffington's  writing  is  the  best  portrait 
of  the  man,  and  is  a  fearful  comment  on  the  heavy  hand  of  England  in  Ire- 
land. 

(Century  Magazine,  February,  1916.) 

England  has  so  successfully  hypnotized  the  world  into  regard- 
ing the  neighboring  conquered  island  as  an  integral  part  of  Great 
Britain  that  even  Americans  gasp  at  the  mention  of  Irish  independ- 
ence. Home  rule  they  understand,  but  independence !  "How  could 
Ireland  maintain  an  independent  existence?"  they  ask.  "How  could 
you  defend  yourselves  against  all  the  great  nations?"  I  do  not  feel 
under  any  obligation  to  answer  this  question,  because  that  objection, 
if  recognized  as  valid,  would  make  an  end  of  the  existence  of  any 
small  nationality  whatever.  All  of  them,  from  their  very  nature,  are 
subject  to  the  perils  and  disadvantages  of  independent  sovereignty. 
I  neither  deny  nor  minimize  these.  But  the  consensus  of  civilized 
opinion  is  now  agreed  that  they  are  entirely  outweighed  by  the  bene- 
fits which  complete  self-government  confers  upon  the  small  nation 
itself,  and  enables  it  to  confer  on  humanity.  If  the  reader  will  not 
admit  this,  I  will  not  stay  to  argue  the  matter  with  him.  I  will 
merely  refer  him  to  the  arguments  in  vogue  in  favor  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  Belgium  as  against  Germany,  or  of  the  Scandinavian 
countries  as  against  Russia. 


1969747 


Neither  will  I  stop  to  argue  with  those  who  say  that  Ireland 
should  he  content  with  home  rule.  Ireland  has  not  got  home  rule, 
and,  unless  England  is  sufficiently  humbled  in  this  war  to  make  Ire- 
land's friendship  worth  buying,  is  not  likely  to  get  it.  But  what  if  it 
had  ?  Bohemia  has  home  rule  within  the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire. 
Is  Bohemia  contented?  It  is  notorious  that  the  great  mass  of  the 
C'/.cchs  are  eagerly  longing  for  the  moment  when  Russia  will  inflict 
such  a  blow  upon  the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire  as  may  enable  Bo- 
hemia to  become  an  independent  central  European  state.  Again,  if 
Bohemia,  why  not  Ireland? 

There  is  an  idea  in  some  quarters,  sedulously  encouraged  by 
England,  with  an  eye  on  the  friendship  of  the  United  States,  that 
whatever  may  have  been  the  case  in  the  past,  the  English  Govern- 
ment in  Ireland  has  improved  of  late  years.  Let  us  therefore  ex- 
amine its  conduct  in  Ireland  during  the  months  immediately  pre- 
ceding the  war. 

A  Liberal  Government  was  in  office  in  England,  pledged  to 
give  home  rule  to  Ireland.  On  the  strength  of  that  pledge,  Mr. 
John  Redmond  and  his  party  kept  that  Government  in  power  for 
over  four  years,  and  enabled  it  to  pass  not  merely  the  act  for  curbing 
the  power  of  the  House  of  Lords,  but  other  measures,  such  as  the 
National  Insurance  Act,  in  which  Ireland  had  no  interest  or  which 
were  actually  detrimental  to  Ireland.  In  Ulster  Sir  Edward  Carson 
led,  armed,  and  drilled  a  body  of  80,000  men,  pledged  to  resist  by 
force  the  enactment  of  home  rule.  Their  drilling  and  arming  were 
in  themselves  unlawful;  their  avowed  object  was  still  more  so,  in- 
volving defiance  of  the  enactments  of  that  imperial  Parliament  to 
which  they  professed  the  utmost  loyalty.  Nevertheless,  the  Liberal 
Government  allowed  this  open  propaganda  of  rebellion,  this  aris- 
tocratically led  and  financed  movement,  to  proceed  unchecked. 

After  two  years  of  this,  the  Nationalists  of  the  South  awoke. 
After  all,  they  said,  we  outnumber  these  Carsonites  by  about  jour  to 
one.  If  they  choose  to  introduce  the  factor  of  physical  force,  if  they 
can  employ  it  successfully  to  intimidate  the  English  Government,  so 
that  its  leading  members  say  that  the  coercion  of  Ulster  is  "unthink- 
able," then  we,  too,  will  cease  to  rely  upon  weapons  of  persuasion 
alone.  We,  too,  will  arm  and  drill,  and  will  face  the  English  Gov- 
ernment with  the  only  argument  it  appears  to  understand.  And 
they  formed  the  Irish  Volunteers. 


--     -X.    a  : 


■    ,-r-^r- 


That  was  in  November,  1913.  Within  a  month  the  Government, 
which  for  two  years  had  allowed  the  Carsonites  to  get  in  all  the  arms 
they  wished,  issued  an  order  prohibiting  the  importation  of  any  arms 
or  ammunition  into  Ireland. 

When  Ireland  is  taunted,  as  a  New  York  evening  newspaper 
has  taunted  it,  with  its  "poltroonery"  in  not  taking  advantage  of  the 
present  war  to  seize  freedom,  these  facts  have  to  be  remembered. 
Anything  in  the  nature  of  arming  or  drilling  was  sternly  repressed 
in  Ireland  until  Carson  began  it.  The  "Volunteers'*  and  the  "Ter- 
ritorials" of  England  had  no  counterpart  in  Ireland,  where  the  peo- 
ple were  never  trusted  with  arms.  Carson  and  his  followers  were 
left  untouched,  because  it  was  known  that,  however  they  might 
declaim  against  a  particular  English  Government,  in  effect  they  stood 
for  that  English  domination  in  Ireland  which  every  Government, 
whether  it  calls  itself  Liberal  or  Tory,  is  careful  to  maintain  as  the 
very  sheet-anchor  of  the  British  Empire.  But  the  arming  of  Irish 
Nationalists,  who  were  pledged  to  maintain  the  rights  and  liberties 
of  Ireland  only,  was  a  different  matter.  The  gravely  perturbed  Eng- 
lish Government  could  not  suppress  the  movement  altogether — Car- 
son's immunity  had  made  that  impossible, — but,  with  an  ingenious 
show  of  impartiality  as  between  the  two  regions,  it  prohibited  all 
import  of  arms.  Carson's  men  had  been  arming  for  two  years;  the 
Nationalists  had  just  begun  to  organize.  The  strict  impartiality  of 
the  order  will  appeal  to  those  who  now  protest  against  any  embargo 
on  the  export  of  munitions  from  the  United  States. 

Both  regions  promptly  started  gun-running.  In  April,  1914, 
the  biggest  gun-running  operation  up  till  then  was  carried  out  by 
the  Ulstermen.  The  Fanny,  the  yacht  which  brought  the  guns,  was 
talked  about  in  the  press  for  a  fortnight  before  it  reached  Ulster; 
the  patrols  of  the  English  navy  were  watching  the  coasts;  yet  some- 
how the  Fanny  reached  Larne,  unloaded  its  cargo,  and  got  away 
again  without  any  interference  from  the  gunboat  patrols.  At  Larne 
it  was  met  by  a  host  of  automobiles,  which  took  away  the  rifles.  To 
facilitate  the  operation,  the  Ulster  Volunteers  seized  Larne  harbor, 
imprisoned  the  harbor  master  and  police,  and  took  the  entire  con- 
trol of  the  town  into  their  hands.  Another  ship-load  was  disem- 
barked on  the  same  night  at  another  Ulster  port.  Here  a  too-zealous 
customs  official  offered  resistance ;  he  died  of  heart  disease.  Nobody 
was  identified,  punished,  or  even  prosecuted  for  this  flagrant  de- 

5 


fiance  of  the  law,  although  the  episode  was  described  by  Mr.  Asquith 
in  the  House  of  Commons  as  an  "unprecedented  outrage/'  and 
pledges  were  given  that  due  punishment  would  be  meted  out  to  its 
perpetrators.  Nothing  was  done.  After  all,  these  were  the  faithful 
"English  garrison  in  Ireland";  for  the  moment  the  politicians  must 
pretend  to  oppose  them,  but  in  reality  they  were  doing  England's 
work  and  helping  to  make  more  difficult,  or  perhaps  impossible,  any 
measure  of  home  rule  for  Ireland. 

Very  different  was  the  attitude  of  the  Government  and  its  offi- 
cials toward  Nationalistic  gun-running.  Here  the  utmost  vigilance 
was  displayed.  Gunboats  patrol ed  the  shores  of  Dublin  and  Wick- 
low,  as  well  as  the  western  coast,  unceasingly.  Even  when  Mr.  Red- 
mond, by  order  of  the  English  Government  (as  is  generally  believed 
in  Ireland)  asserted  his  right  to  command  the  Irish  Volunteers, 
which  he  had  not  founded;  even  when  the  founders  of  the  organiza- 
tion yielded  to  Mr.  Redmond  and  gave  his  nominees  half  the  seats 
on  their  committee,  still,  Mr.  Redmond  could  not  persuade  the  Gov- 
ernment to  relax  the  ban  on  the  importation  of  arms.  Perhaps  he 
did  not  try  very  hard.  He  was  as  much  afraid  of  the  Volunteers  as 
the  Government  was;  his  only  wish  was  to  keep  them  under  his  con- 
trol, lest  they  might  become  an  instrument  for  those  Nationalists 
who  looked  beyond  Parliament  sham  battles  to  the  complete  libera- 
tion of  Ireland. 

This  portion  in  the  Volunteers  continued  gun-running  under  the 
double  disadvantage  of  having  to  deceive  both  the  Government  and 
their  own  Redmondite  colleagues  on  the  Joint  Executive  Committee. 
On  July  26,  just  after  the  Austrian  ultimatum  to  Servia,  the  famous 
gun-running  exploit  of  Howth  took  place.  The  Dublin  Volunteers 
made  a  Sunday  route-march  to  Howth  (nine  miles),  none  but  a  few 
leaders  knowing  the  object.  As  they  entered  the  village,  a  yacht, 
steered  by  a  woman,  came  alongside  the  pier.  The  English  patrol- 
boat  was  not  in  the  neighborhood,  a  conveniently  disseminated  rumor 
of  gun-running  in  Wexford  having  sent  it  off  on  a  false  scent.  This 
yacht's  arrival  had  not  been  boomed  in  advance,  like  the  Fanny's, 
otherwise  the  vigilance  of  the  patrol  would  not  have  been  so  easy 
to  elude  as  the  Ulstermen  had  found  it.  The  Volunteers,  following 
strictly  the  Ulster  precedent,  took  possession  of  the  pier,  excluded 
the  police  and  harbor  officials, — they  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  imprison 
them  in  their  own  offices  and  barracks,  as  had  been  done,  with  only 


a  shadow  of  resistance,  at  Lame, — disembarked  the  guns,  and 
marched  off  to  Dublin  with  them.  Meantime  the  wires  had  been 
humming,  and  Dublin  Castle  was  on  the  alert.  At  Clontarf,  in  the 
outskirts  of  the  city,  the  Volunteers,  marching  with  unloaded  rifles, 
were  met  by  a  combined  force  of  police  and  soldiers.  A  parley  took 
place.  The  Government's  official,  Harrel,  demanded  the  surrender  of 
the  rifles;  the  Volunteer  leaders  refused.  Harrel  ordered  the  police 
to  take  the  rifles.  Some  of  the  police  refused,  and  the  remainder 
acted  with  evident  reluctance,  an  unheard-of  thing  in  Ireland,  but  a 
symptom  of  the  general  perception  of  the  deliberate  favoritism 
shown  by  the  Government  to  the  Ulstermen  as  compared  with  the 
Irish  Volunteers.  The  soldiers,  a  company  of  the  King's  Own  Scot- 
tish Borderers,  were  then  ordered  to  charge  the  Volunteers  with 
fixed  bayonets.  Some  Volunteers  were  stabbed,  and  a  massacre 
seemed  inevitable,  when  a  fresh  parley  was  entered  upon.  By  the 
time  it  was  over,  Harrel  discovered  that  only  the  front  rank  of  the 
Volunteers  still  stood  their  ground  in  front  of  him;  the  remainder, 
in  obedience  to  a  rapidly  disseminated  order,  "Save  the  guns,"  had 
executed  a  strategic  retirement.  Harrel  then  drew  off  his  force,  and 
the  remnant  of  the  Volunteers  completed  their  march  unmolested,  no 
guns  having  been  lost. 

As  the  soldiers  marched  back  to  the  barracks,  the  Dublin  popu- 
lace assailed  them  with  curses  and  later  with  stones.  The  troops  re- 
taliated with  a  series  of  bayonet-charges,  which  further  enraged  the 
crowd,  in  which  wild  rumors  of  the  fight  at  Clontarf  had  spread. 
The  soldiers  were  undoubtedly  peppered  pretty  severely  with  stones ; 
but  the  assailants  were  all  unarmed,  and  were  largely  composed  of 
women  and  ohildren,  The?e  was  no  justification  whatever  for  the 
action  taken  by  the  soldiery-,  They  turned  and  fired  at  the  crowd 
without  giving  any  warning,  without  even  firing  a  preliminary  volley 
over  their  heads.  Four  people  were  killed)  one  man,  two  women,  one 
boy.  Several  others  were  wounded,  of  whom  one  subsequently  died, 
Nobody  was  punished;  a  whitewashing  inquiry  was  held,  but  mean- 
time the  Scottish  borderers  had  "distinguished  themselves"  by  get- 
ting wiped  out  in  the  retreat  from  Mons,  and  no  disciplinary  meas- 
ures were  taken.  Harrel,  the  assistant  commissioner  of  the  Dublin 
police,  who  had  taken  it  upon  himself  to  call  out  the  soldiers  in  the 
first  instance,  was  made  a  temporary  scapegoat;  but  he  is  now  again 
in  the  service  of  the  Government  in  Ireland,  helping  in  the  secret- 

7  ....... 


service  department,  which  looks  after  political  affairs. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  this  incident  of  the  struggle  at  Clontarf  and 
the  shooting  at  Bachelor's  Walk  because  it  happened  before  the  war. 
Some  people  in  America,  I  find,  think  that  England's  present 
severity  to  Ireland  is  merely  a  result  of  the  state  of  war.  When  the 
anniversary  of  Bachelor's  Walk  came  round  this  year,  the  people 
proposed  to  put  up  a  commemorative  tablet,  but  the  military  for- 
bade. 

A  week  after  the  Bachelor's  Walk  massacre  (the  Irish  Zabern, 
as  we  call  it)  the  war  against  "German  militarism"  broke  out.  Mr. 
Redmond,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  had  the  incredible  audacity  to 
commit  the  Irish  people  to  the  support  of  this  war.  He  and  his 
party  were  returned  to  Parliament  for  one  object  only,  to  secure 
home  rule.  At  no  Irish  election  did  any  other  question  become  an 
issue.  Repeatedly  had  Mr.  Redmond,  when  called  upon  to. help 
some  progressive  cause,  sheltered  himself  behind  his  lack  of  "man- 
date" ;  his  mandate,  he  declared,  was  for  home  rule  only.  Yet  with- 
out any  mandate  he  ventured  to  commit  Ireland  to  the  support  of 
England  in  a  European  war.  By  doing  so  he  missed  the  greatest 
opportunity  that  has  ever  come  to  an  Irish  statesman.  Had  he,  on 
August  3,  1914,  spoken  as  follows  in  the  imperial  Parliament:  "I 
have  no  mandate  from  the  Irish  people  as  to  what  our  attitude 
should  be  in  the  event  of  a  European  war;  the  question  has  never 
been  discussed  between  us.  My  colleagues  and  I  are  now  going  home 
to  Ireland  to  consult  our  constituents  as  to  what  Ireland's  attitude 
should  be" — had  he  spoken  thus,  and  followed  up  such  a  speech  by 
walking  out  of  the  House  and  returning  to  Ireland,  the  English  Gov- 
ernment would  have  been  on  its  knees  to  him  within  a  fortnight,  and 
he  would  have  been  able  to  command,  as  the  price  of  his  and  Ireland's 
aid,  something  much  better  than  a  mutilated  home-rule  act  on  the 
statute-book,  which  can  never  come  into  operation.  He  should,  in 
short,  have  acted  after  the  fashion  of  those  Balkan  statesmen,  who 
care  nothing  for  either  of  the  warring  parties,  but  look  with  a  single 
eye  to  the  interest  of  their  own  country. 

A  period  of  storm  and  confusion  followed  Mr.  Redmond's  be- 
trayal of  Ireland's  interests  to  England.  The  Government  tried  to 
avoid  even  putting  the  home-rule  bill  on  the  statute-book ;  Redmond, 
driven  by  public  opinion,  increasingly  stormy  in  Ireland,  was  obliged 
to  insist  upon  that  as  a  minimum.     But  in  passing  the  act,  the  Gov- 

8 


ernment  also  passed  a  suspensory  act,  holding  it  up  for  a  year,  or 
longer,  if  so  ordered  by  the  Government  at  the  end  of  the  year;  and 
they  also  declared  that  they  would  not  in  any  circumstance  "coerce 
Ulster."  With  the  "home  rule  for  three-quarters  of  Ireland"  in  the 
form  of  a  scrap  of  paper,  Mr.  Redmond  tried  to  induce  his  followers 
to  join  the  army.  The  immediate  result  was  a  split  in  the  Irish 
Volunteers.  The  founders  of  the  Volunteers,  who  had  accepted  Red- 
niondite  co-operation  on  the  committee  so  long  as  no  recruiting  plank 
was  adopted,  now  expelled  the  Redmondite  nominees  from  the  com- 
mittee, seized  the  Volunteer  offices  in  Kildare  street,  Dublin,  barri- 
caded and  garrisoned  them,  and  prepared  to  hold  them  against  all 
comers.  The  Redmondite  portion  formed  a  new  body,  the  "National 
Volunteers,"  who  never  troubled  much  about  drilling  or  arming,  but 
were,  and  are,  merely  a  branch  of  the  Redmondite  political  machine. 
Their  devotion  to  their  leader,  however,  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  in- 
duce them  to  follow  his  advice  and  enter  the  English  army,  as  was 
shown  when  30,000  of  them  paraded  before  Mr.  Redmond  last  Eas- 
ter (1915),  men  who,  if  they  had  taken  Mr.  Redmond's  words  seri- 
ously, ought  to  have  been  in  Flanders  or  at  the  Dardanelles. 

Much  confusion  was  introduced  into  the  Irish  situation  by  the 
case  of  Belgium,  and  by  the  unscrupulous  use  made  by  the  English 
recruiting  agencies  of  Ireland's  traditional  and  historic  sympathy 
with  that  country  and  with  France.  Catholic  Ireland  must  fight  to 
save  Catholic  Belgium,  was  the  cry.  We  countered  that  by  asking 
why  should  we  not  fight  for  Catholic  Galicia,  which  was  then  in  pos- 
session of  the  anti-Catholic  Russians.  Mr.  Ginnell,  the  only  Irish 
member  of  Parliament  who  is  not  attached  to  any  political  machine, 
and  also  the  only  one  who  opposes  recruiting,  has  repeatedly  asked 
the  Government  to  bring  pressure  to  bear  on  its  Russian  allies,  with 
a  view  to  getting  for  the  Cardinal  Archbishop  of  Lemberg  as  good 
treatment  as  that  accorded  by  the  Germans  to  Cardinal  Archbishop 
of  Mechlin;  but  the  Government  has  decided  that  it  would  not  be 
proper  to  "interfere  with  the  internal  affairs  of  our  ally." 

Louvain  was  the  recruiters'  trump-card.  "Remember,"  the  Irish 
were  adjured,  "that  your  priests  went  to  Louvain  to  be  educated 
when  they  could  not  get  educated  in  their  own  land."  Some  one  with 
an  inconvenient  historical  memory  replied  by  a  reminder  that  it  was 
English  persecution  that  prevented  Catholic  priests  from  getting 
education  in  Ireland  and  compelled  them  to  go  to  Louvain.     Similar 


audacity  was  attempted  in  the  case  of  France.  Ireland  was  adjured 
to  fight  for  France  because  France  had  of  old  helped  Ireland — 
against  England !  Another  cry  was,  "The  brutal  Germans  are  the 
descendants  of  those  Hessian  troops  who  helped  to  put  down  the 
rising  of  1798."  But  who  brought  the  Hessians  to  Ireland  and  paid 
them?  The  English  Government.  In  this  fashion  has  every  recruit- 
ing argument  proved  a  boomerang.  Despite  the  subsidizing  of  the 
daily  and  the  suppression  of  the  weekly  press;  despite  the  pressure 
exerted  by  all  the  political  machines  and  all  the  influence  of  social 
and  economic  resources;  despite  the  prosecution,  under  the  Defense 
of  the  Realm  Act,  of  any  who  venture  to  advise  an  opposite  course; 
despite  military  law,  suspension  of  trial  by  j  ury,  arbitrary  imprison- 
ment, and  deportation,  the  Irish  people  have  stood  fast.  Four  hun- 
dred thousand  Irishmen  of  military  age  have  stood  their  ground 
quietly  and  tenaciously,  and  have  refused  to  be  stampeded  into  a 
war  in  which  they  have  no  concern.* 

For  it  is  the  essence  of  the  Irish  case  that  Ireland  has  no  con- 
cern in  this  war.  The  pretense  that  it  was  being  waged  in  behalf  of 
Belgium  and  of  the  principle  of  small  nationalities  imposed  on  a  few, 
but  not  for  long;  the  frank  declaration  of  the  London  "Times"  on 
March  8  that  England  is  in  this  war  for  her  own  interests  and  for 
the  preservation  of  her  dominance  over  the  seas,  is  generally  recog- 
nized as  stating  the  position  accurately.  Even  if  Belgium  were  the 
cause  of  the  war  instead  of  an  incident  in  it,  there  would  still  be  no 
reason  why  Ireland,  of  all  countries,  should  plunge  into  the  fray. 
Ireland  is  the  most  depopulated  and  impoverished  country  in  Europe, 
thanks  to  the  beneficent  English  rule  of  the  last  century,  and  has  no 
blood  or  money  to  spare;  and  if  Holland  and  Denmark  and  Sweden 
and  Switzerland,  all  richer  and  more  densely  populated  than  Ireland, 
still  feel  that  it  is  their  duty  to  keep  out  of  the  war,  a  fortiori  it  is 
the  duty  of  Irish  statesmen  to  use  every  effort  to  keep  their  people 
out  of  it.  Ireland's  highest  need  is  peace  and  the  peaceful  develop- 
ment of  her  resources ;  not  a  man  can  be  spared  for  any  chivalric  ad- 
venture. Belgium,  hard  pressed  as  it  is,  has  not  yet  suffered  a  tithe 
of  what  has  been  endured  by  Ireland  at  the  hands  of  England,  and 


*Note. — In  the  autumn  of  1917,  two  years  after  this  article  was  written, 
it  still  remained  true  that  approximately  this  number  of  Irishmen  of  military 
age  have  refused  to  Join  in  a  war  for  democracy,  as  the  issue  has  now  come 
to  be  defined,  while  England  continues  to  refuse  democracy  to  Ireland,  and 
governs  there,  as  she  always  has,  by  conquest  and  without  "the  consent  of 
the  governed." 

10 


Ireland  is  still  bleeding  at  every  pore  from  the  wounds  England  in- 
flicted. Thus  even  were  the  Belgian  excuse  true,  there  would  be 
higher  reasons  of  self-interest  to  keep  Irish  attention  concentrated  on 
our  own  problems. 

Belgium  apart,  the  other  objects  of  the  war — the  real  objects — 
have  still  less  claim  on  Ireland.  England's  domination  of  the  seas 
has  been  used  not  accidentally,  but  of  set  purpose,  to  discourage 
Irish  trade,  to  keep  derelict  Ireland's  magnificent  harbors,  the  finest 
natural  harbors  in  western  Europe,  and  to  prevent  the  growth  of 
any  mercantile  marine  in  Ireland.  Ireland  has  never  been  a  partner 
in  the  empire  or  its  advantages;  she  has  been  a  Helot  dragged  at 
the  chariot-tail  of  the  empire.  As  it  has  been  put,  "Ireland  belongs 
to  the  empire,  and  the  empire  belongs  to  England." 

The  latest  instance  of  deliberate  English  interference  with  an 
Irish  trading  interest,  before  the  war,  was  the  stoppage  of  the 
Queenstown  call.  Formerly  all  the  great  transatlantic  liners  called 
at  Queenstown  both  on  the  eastern  and  western  journeys,  to  the 
great  benefit  of  mail  service  not  merely  from  Ireland,  but  from  some 
parts  of  Great  Britain  as  well.  The  mail-carrying  companies,  one 
after  another,  stopped  this  call  at  Queenstown,  with  the  assent  of 
the  English  Government,  despite  unanimous  protests  from  all  Ire- 
land, north  as  well  as  south.  A  committee  of  patriotic  Irish  people, 
which  included  Mrs.  J.  R.  Green,  widow  of  the  eminent  historian, 
and  Sir  Roger  Casement,  was  formed  for  the  purpose  of  pressing  the 
Government  to  reestablish  the  Queenstown  call.  Failing  in  that,  as 
a  brilliant  counterstroke,  this  committee  induced  the  Hamburg- 
American  Line  to  arrange  that  its  liners  should  call  at  Queenstown. 
The  English  Foreign  Office  was  thunderstruck.  Secret  negotiations 
were  at  once  entered  upon  to  prevent  Ireland  from  being  thus  re- 
stored to  its  proper  place  on  the  transatlantic  highway.  The  Ger- 
man Government,  naturally  valuing  England's  friendship  more  than 
that  of  poor,  weak  Ireland,  intervened.  The  Hamburg-American 
liners  never  called  at  Queenstown,  despite  their  publicly  announced 
intention  of  doing  so.  This,  by  the  way,  may  be  added  to  the  cate- 
gory of  German  diplomatic  blunders.  Had  Germany  thus  dra- 
matically intervened  to  grant  Ireland  a  trading  favor  that  England 
had  refused,  the  way  would  have  been  much  clearer  before  Irishmen 
when  the  war  broke  out.  I  have  little  doubt  that  the  English  Foreign 
Office,  already  foreseeing  war,  had  tins  in  mind  when  it  exerted  itself 

11 


to  prevent  Germany  from  showing  Ireland  this   manifestation   of 
favor. 

"  Without  any  illusions,  then,  about  Germany,  but  with  a  clear 
vision  of  the  English  Empire  as  the  incubus  on  Ireland,  Irish  Na- 
tionalists decided  from  the  start  of  the  war  that  it  was  Ireland's  in- 
terest and  duty  to  remain  neutral  as  far  as  possible.  In  these  days 
of  small  nationalities  Ireland's  right  to  take  an  independent  line  on 
the  war  cannot  be  contested,  at  all  events  by  those  who  are  fighting 
"German  militarism."  Being  held  by  force  by  the  empire,  and 
plentifully  garrisoned  both  by  troops  and  armed  police, — the  police 
have  been  refused  permission  to  join  the  army,  though  many  of  them 
have  volunteered,  because  the  Government  wants  them  to  keep  Ire- 
land down, — it  was  not  possible  for  Ireland  to  be  neutral  in  the  full 
sense.  Irishmen  who  had  joined  the  army  in  time  of  peace,  through 
economic  pressure  for  the  most  part,  had  to  fulfil  their  duties  as 
reservists;  Ireland's  heavy  burden  of  the  war  taxation  could  not  be 
evaded.  But,  as  one  of  Ireland's  best  known  literary  men  put  it, 
Ireland  preserved  "a  moral  and  intellectual  neutrality";  and  the  in- 
dividual sympathies  of  the  people,  while  not  "pro-German"  in  any 
positive  sense,  were  and  are,  distinctly  anti-English. 

Mr.  Bonar  Law  said  that  if  Canada  or  Australia  was  disinclined 
to  help  the  empire  in  this  war,  no  English  statesman  would  dream  of 
compelling  them  to  do  so.  But  Ireland's  notorious  and  marked  dis- 
inclination to  help  was  treated  from  the  first  as  a  crime,  and  the 
sternest  measures  of  repression  were  employed  against  those  who 
claimed  Ireland's  right,  as  a  small  nation,  to  settle  the  question  for 
itself.  Since  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  the  regime  in  Ireland  has  been 
one  of  coercion  tempered  by  dread  of  publicity.  The  English  Gov- 
ernment set  two  aims  before  itself:  to  suppress  Irish  discontent,  and 
at  the  same  time  convince  the  world  that  no  Irish  discontent  existed. 
These  aims  are  not  reconcilable,  and  the  pursuit  of  both  had  led  to 
an  extraordinary  series  of  inconsistent  and  muddle-headed  actions. 
I  cannot  detail  them  all  in  this  article. 

The  first  attack  was  made  on  the  independent  press.  The 
daily  press  was  reduced  to  subserviency,  negatively  by  fear  of  hav- 
ing its  telegraphic  supplies  cut  off,  positively  by  huge  sums  paid  for 
recruiting  advertisements  by  the  English  war  office.  The  various  Na- 
tionalist weeklies  had  to  be  dealt  with  otherwise,  as  they  could  neither 
be  bribed  nor  intimidated.    The  method  adopted  was  to  strike  at  the 

12 


printer — to  march  soldiers  with  fixed  bayonets  to  the  printing  offices, 
dismantle  the  plant,  seize  the  type  and  the  essential  portions  of  the 
printing  machines,  and  carry  them  off  to  Dublin  Castle  without  of- 
fering  the  smallest  compensation  to  the  printer.  This  was  done  with- 
out any  process  of  law,  on  the  mere  arbitrary  fiat  of  the  military 
authorities  in  Ireland.  Seven  papers — one  daily,  one  bi-weekly,  four 
weeklies,  and  one  monthly — were  suppressed  in  Dublin  by  the  actual 
use  of  this  method  or  by  the  threat  of  it.  In  no  case  was  any  prose- 
cution directed  against  any  of  the  writers  or  editors  of  the  papers. 
This  was  a  case  in  which  it  was  possible  to  achieve  the  maximum  of 
suppression  with  the  minimum  of  publicity. 

I  have  been  asked  in  America  "Does  not  the  Defense  of  the 
Realm  Act,  which  confers  such  absolute  power  on  the  military  au- 
thorities, apply  to  Great  Britain  as  well  as  to  Ireland?"  It  does; 
but  the  application  is  different.  This  is  well  illustrated  by  what  took 
place  in  the  case  of  one  of  the  papers  suppressed,  the  "Irish  Work- 
er." After  it  had  been  stopped  by  a  military  raid  on  the  printing- 
works,  the  proprietors  got  it  printed  in  Glasgow.  The  military  au- 
thorities did  not  dare  to  interfere  with  the  Scottish  printers;  they 
simply  waited  until  the  copies  of  the  paper  arrived  in  Dublin  for  dis- 
tribution, met  the  boat,  and  seized  every  copy. 

A  similar  discrimination  is  shown  in  the  stoppage  of  American 
newspapers  from  entering  Ireland.  They  are  freely  admitted  into 
England, — even  the  "Irish  World"  and  the  "Gaelic  American," — 
but  are  strictly  censored  in  entering  Ireland,  and  anything  contain- 
ing either  news  or  opinions  likely  to  "excite"  the  Irish  people  is  not 
permitted  to  pass  through.  As  it  was  put  by  Mr.  P.  H.  Pearse, 
headmaster  of  St.  Edna's  secondary  school,  Rathfarnham,  at  a  meet- 
ing last  May:  "Our  isolation  from  the  rest  of  the  world  is  now  al- 
most complete.  Our  books  and  papers  cannot  get  out;  the  boohs 
and  papers  of  other  nations  cannot  get  in." 

At  first  the  Defense  of  the  Realm  Act  altogether  abolished  trial 
by  jury,  substituted  trial  by  court-martial  for  any  offense  under  the 
Act.  Thanks  to  protests  by  English  constitutional  lawyers,  the  Gov- 
rrmnent  was  obliged  to  modify  this,  and  give  to  "British  subjects" 
trird  under  the  act  the  option  of  claiming  trial  by  jury.  But  a  clause 
was  slipped  in,  saying,  "This  shall  not  apply  in  the  case  of  offenses 
tried  by  summary  jurisdiction."  The  effect  of  this  is  that  whenever 
the  military  authorities  wish  to  avoid  trial  by  jury,  they  have  only 

13 


to  decide,  which  they  have  absolute  power  to  do,  that  the  case  shall 
be  tried  by  "summary  jurisdiction";  that  is  to  say,  by  a  paid  magis- 
trate, always  a  mere  tool  of  Dublin  Castle,  without  any  jury  or  any 
right  of  appeal  to  a  jury. 

Only  one  man  charged  under  the  Defense  of  the  Realm  Act  has 
been  accorded  trial  by  jury  in  Ireland.  The  history  of  his  case  is 
instructive.  John  Hegarty  was  a  post-office  official  with  long  service 
and  an  excellent  record.  When  the  war  broke  out  he  was  stationed 
in  Cork.  He  was  ordered,  without  any  accusation  being  made 
against  him,  to  leave  Cork  and  take  up  a  position  in  the  postal  service 
in  England.  He  refused,  pointing  out  that  his  home  and  friends 
were  in  Cork,  and  that  there  was  no  j  ustification  for  arbitrarily  turn- 
ing him  out.  The  answer  of  the  postal  department  was  to  dismiss 
him  from  the  service  without  pension  or  compensation.  Immediately 
thereafter  he  was  ordered  by  the  military  authorities  to  leave  the  city 
of  Cork.  He  obeyed,  and  retreated  to  a  remote  spot  in  the  Cork 
Mountains,  in  Ballingarry,  where  he  proceeded  to  support  himself 
by  agricultural  labor.  Within  a  few  weeks  the  military  ordered  him 
to  leave  the  County  of  Cork,  still  without  making  any  charge  against 
him  or  giving  him  any  chance  to  defend  himself  in  court.  He  went 
to  Enniscorthy,  in  the  County  of  Wexford,  and  stayed  with  friends 
there.  Last  February  he  was  arrested  in  Enniscorthy,  dragged  from 
his  bed  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  brought  to  Dublin,  detained  in  a 
military  barracks  for  a  month,  then  transferred  to  the  civil  authori- 
ties and  allowed  trial  by  jury,  but  not  by  an  Enniscorthy  jury,  which 
would  have  been  his  right  under  the  ordinary  civil  law.  A  long  series 
of  charges  was  brought  against  him,  including  the  writing  of  sedi- 
tious notices  and  the  possession  of  arms,  ammunition,  and  explosives. 
He  was  tried  three  times  (between)  April  and  June  by  three  dif- 
ferent juries;  in  each  case  the  Crown  and  the  judge  made  great  ef- 
forts to  secure  a  conviction.  Two  of  the  juries  acquitted  him  on  two 
different  charges,  the  third  disagreed.  Then  the  military  authori- 
ties sent  Major  Price  to  Hegarty  in  Mountjoy  Jail  (I  was  in  the 
same  jail  at  the  time,  and  Hegarty  told  me  the  facts  in  the  exercise 
yard)  and  offered  to  release  him  if  he  would  agree  to  go  to  America. 
Hegarty  refused.  Then  Major  Price  offered  to  release  him  if  he 
would  agree  to  remain  in  some  spot  indicated  by  the  military  authori- 
ties, and  never  leave  it.  Hegarty  replied  that  he  was  willing  to  go 
to  Ballingarry,  from  which  the  military  had  driven  him;  and  he  was 

14 


finally  permitted  to  return  there,  after  refusing  to  sign  an  under- 
taking that  he  would  not  go  ten  miles  from  Ballingarry  without 
leave. 

One  of  the  facts  brought  out  in  the  Hegarty  trial,  which  the 
press,  duly  intimidated  or  bribed,  did  not  report,  was  that  for  many 
months  no  letter  or  parcel  had  reached  Hegarty  without  being  opened 
and  examined  by  the  secret  police  while  passing  through  the  mails. 
This  process  of  "Grangerizing"  has  been  carried  to  a  fine  art  in 
Ireland;  not  even  in  Russia  (happily  the  verb  should  now  read 
"was")  there  a  more  complete  system  of  espionage  on  the  corre- 
spondence of  all  persons  even  remotely  suspected  of  disaffection 
toward  the  English  rule  of  Ireland. 

Hegarty's  was  the  first  and  last  case  in  which  the  military 
authorities  gave  the  option  of  trial  by  jury  to  any  prisoner  charged 
under  the  Defense  of  the  Realm  Act.  The  others  were  brought  be- 
fore the  paid  magistrates,  and  automatically  convicted  and  sentenced. 
The  sentences  ranged  from  a  fortnight  (which  was  given  to  a  Dub- 
lin boy  for  kicking  a  recruiting-poster!)  to  twelve  months,  six  of 
them  with  hard  labor,  which  was  my  sentence  for  making  a  speech 
"calculated  to  prejudice  recruiting."  I  went  on  hunger  strike,  and 
was  out  in  six  days,  with  a  license  under  the  Cat  and  Mouse  Act, 
which  renders  me  liable  at  any  time  for  the  rest  of  my  life  to  rearrest 
and  imprisonment  for  the  balance  of  my  sentence  without  further 
process  of  trial,  a  convenient  method  of  getting  rid  of  an  opponent.* 

Trial  by  jury  had  failed  to  get  convictions;  trial  before  paid 
magistrates  got  convictions,  but  also  gave  undesirable  publicity.  The 
batch  of  cases  of  which  mine  was  one  raised  a  storm  not  only  in  Ire- 
land, but  in  England.  In  Dublin,  meetings  of  protest  were  held  out- 
side the  jail,  and  placards  denouncing  the  sentences  were  posted  all 
over  the  city.  Mr.  G.  Bernard  Shaw  wrote  a  letter,  declaring  that  if 
I  deserved  six  months'  hard  labor,  Lord  Northcliffe  deserved  about 
sixty  years.  Mr.  Conal  O'Riordan,  the  distinguished  Irish  dramatist 
and  novelist,  wrote  dissociating  himself  from  my  point  of  view,  but 
condemning  my  sentence;  Mr.  Robert  Lynd,  one  of  the  ablest  Irish 
journalists  on  the  London  press  (literary  editor  of  the  "Daily 
News")  did  the  same;  and  the  indignation  was  steadily  growing, 
in  range  and  intensity,  throughout  the  English  radical  and  labor 
press  up  to  the  moment  of  my  release. 

•Note. — This  Is  the  matter  that  rendered  Mr.  Skeffilngton  persona  non  grata 
to  the  English  Government  and  led  to  his  murder  finally. 

15 


One  result  of  this  was  that  the  Dublin  Castle  authorities  did 
not  rearrest  me  under  the  Cat  and  Mouse  Act,  although  I  had  ignored 
all  the  conditions  of  the  license  as  to  reporting  my  movements  to  the 
police,  and  they  did  not  interfere  with  my  departure  to  America. 
They  made,  however,  an  unsuccessful  attempt,  through  Sir  Horace 
Plunkett,  to  exact  from  me  a  pledge  that  I  would  not  speak  nor  write 
anything  against  England  in  the  United  States.  Another  result  was 
that  even  trials  by  paid  magistrates  were  found  to  give  too  much 
publicity ;  accordingly,  the  next  method  tried  was  arbitrary  deporta- 
tion without  trial  or  accusation.  This  had  been  adopted,  in  the  form 
of  orders  to  leave  a  certain  county  or  district,  in  many  cases  besides 
Hegarty's,  but  now  a  wider  extension  was  given  to  the  method.  In 
July  four  organizers  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  were  ordered  by  the 
military  authorities  to  leave  Ireland  within  a  week.  They  refused. 
The  military  then  had  to  arrest  them  and  try  them;  but  to  avoid  un- 
desirable publicity,  they  charged  them  with  disobeying  a  military  or- 
der, the  grounds  for  the  issue  of  such  an  order  not  being  disclosed. 
The  judicial  tools  of  the  castle  duly  sentenced  these  four  men  to 
three  and  four  months'  imprisonment. 

Even  this  has  not  stopped  publicity,  for  the  Redmondite  party 
has  been  stung  into  protest  against  this  latest  arbitrary  action,  and 
has  demanded  throug  Mr.  Joseph  Devlin,  M.  P.,  that  these  four 
men  get  a  new  and  fair  trial,  and  that  the  grounds  for  the  deporta- 
tion order  be  openly  stated  at  that  trial. 

Meanwhile  O'Donovan  Rossa,  the  old  Fenian,  has  been  buried 
in  Dublin  with  a  great  display  of  military  force  by  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers. The  funeral  oration,  pronounced  by  Mr.  Pearse,  was  a  defiant 
assertion  of  Ireland's  unconquerable  resolution  to  achieve  independ- 
ence. Recruiting  for  the  English  army,  despite  all  kinds  of  pressure 
and  advertising  languishes,  while  the  recruiting  for  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers is  so  brisk  that  the  headquarters  of  that  body  cannot  keep  pace 
with  it. 

And  when  peace  comes,  Ireland,  with  the  other  small  nations, 
will  stand  at  the  doors  of  The  Hague  conference,  and  will  claim  her 
rights  from  the  community  of  nations.  Shall  peace  bring  freedom 
to  Belgium  and  Poland,  perhaps  to  Finland  and  Bohemia,  and  not  to 
Ireland?  Must  Irish  freedom  be  gained  in  blood,  or  will  the  comity 
of  nations,  led  by  the  United  States,  shame  a  weakened  England  into 
putting  into  practice  at  home  the  principles  which  are  so  loudly 
trumpeted  for  the  benefit  of  Germany? 

16 


BRITISH  MILITARISM  AS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  IT 
(Being  a  Digest  of  Mrs.  Sheehy  Skeffington's  Lecture) 

When  first  I  learned  the  facts  about  my  husband's  murder  I 
made  up  my  mind  to  come  to  America  and  tell  the  story  to  as  many 
audiences  in  the  United  States  as  I  could  reach. 

F.  Sheehy  Skeffington  was  an  anti-militarist,  a  fighting  pacifist. 
A  man  gentle  and  kindly  even  to  his  bitterest  opponents,  who  always 
ranged  himself  on  the  side  of  the  weak  against  the  strong,  whether 
the  struggle  was  one  of  class,  sex  or  race  domination.  Together 
with  his  strong  fighting  spirit,  he  had  a  marvelous,  an  unextinguish- 
able  good  humor,  a  keen  joy  in  life,  a  great  faith  in  humanity  and 
a  hope  in  the  progress  toward  good. 

F.  Sheehy  Skeffington's  Last  Days 

At  the  beginning  of  the  outbreak  on  Easter  Monday,  my  hus- 
band was  in  Dublin.  At  the  assault  on  Dublin  Castle,  a  British  of- 
ficer (Captain  Pinfield)  was  reported  gravely  wounded  and  lying 
bleeding  to  death  near  the  castle  gate.  As  there  was  considerable 
cross-firing  no  one  dared  to  go  to  his  aid.  My  husband,  learning 
this,  persuaded  a  chemist  to  go  with  him  to  the  rescue,  and  crossed 
the  square  under  a  hail  of  fire.  He  found,  however,  that  some  of  his 
friends  had  managed  to  drag  the  officer  inside  the  Castle  gate,  there 
being  left  only  a  pool  of  blood.  When  I  remonstrated  that  night 
with  my  husband  on  his  running  such  a  terrible  risk,  he  replied  sim- 
ply, "I  could  not  let  anyone  bleed  to  death  while  I  could  help," — 
characteristic  of  his  simple  heroism,  cool  courage  and  horror  of 
bloodshed. 

All  Monday  and  Tuesday  he  actively  interested  himself  in  pre- 
venting looting  by  British  sympathizers.  He  saved  various  shops, 
posted  civic  guards  and  enlisted  the  help  of  many  civilians  and 
priests.  He  talked  to  the  crowds  and  held  them  off.  But  by  Tues- 
day evening  everyone  was  afraid.  He  called  a  meeting  that  evening 
to  organize  a  civic  police.  I  met  him  about  5:30.  We  had  tea  to- 
gether and  I  went  home  by  devious  routes,  for  I  was  anxious  about 
my  boy.     I  never  again  saw  my  husband. 

17 


The  Arrk8t 

Because  of  my  husband's  work  in  behalf  of  the  freedom  of  Ire- 
land his  arrest  was  desirable,  from  a  British  standpoint,  and  his 
description  had  been  circulated  at  the  bridges,  which  he  would  have 
to  pass  on  his  way  home.  Accordingly,  when,  between  7  and  8  he 
passed  Portobello,  Lieut.  Morris,  who  was  in  charge,  had  him  ar- 
rested. He  was  unarmed,  carrying  a  walking  stick  and  was  walking 
quite  alone  in  the  middle  of  the  road.  As  he  came  to  the  bridge 
some  of  the  crowd  shouted  his  name.  He  was  arrested  and  taken, 
without  resistance,  to  Portobello  Barracks,  and  was  searched  and 
questioned.  No  papers  of  an  incriminating  character  were  found  on 
him.  The  Adjutant  (Lieut.  Morgan)  reported  the  arrest,  with  that 
of  others,  at  headquarters,  saying  that  there  was  no  charge  against 
Skeffington,  and  asking  whether  he  would  release  him,  with  others 
against  whom  there  was  no  charge,  that  night.  Orders  were  given 
to  release  the  others,  but  to  detain  Skeffington.  The  charge  sheet 
was  produced  at  the  Simon  Commission  hearing,  and  I  saw  it. 
Against  my  husband's  name  was  entered,  "no  charge." 

When  told  he  was  detained,  he  specially  asked  that  I  should,  be 
informed,  but  this  was  refused.  No  message  was  ever  allowed  to 
reach  me,  no  notification  of  his  death,  of  his  first  or  second  burial 
was  ever  issued,  and  every  scrap  of  information  with  regard  to  his 
murder  has  had  ever  since  to  be  extracted  bit  by  bit  from  the  re- 
luctant authorities. 

Hostage  Incident 

About  midnight  Capt.  Bowen-Colthurst  came  to  the  captain  of 
the  guard,  Lieut.  Dobbin,  and  got  him  to  hand  over  his  prisoner. 
This  was  an  illegal  act.  The  captain  of  the  guard  is  supposed  to 
hand  over  no  prisoner  under  his  care  (in  what  they  call  the  "King's 
Peace")  without  a  written  order  from  the  commanding  officer.  My 
husband  was  taken  out  as  a  hostage,  his  hands  bound  behind  him 
with  a  rope.  He  was  then  taken  out  with  a  raiding  party  in  charge 
of  Capt.  Bowen-Colthurst  and  Lieut.  Leslie  Wilson.  As  they  went 
they  fired  at  various  houses  along  the  Rathmines  Road  to  prevent 
anyone  appearing  at  the  windows. 

Opposite  Rathmines  Catholic  Church  they  saw  two  boys  (one  a 
lad  called  Coade,  17  years  of  age).    They  had  been  attending  church 

18 


that  evening  and  were  going  home.  The  captain  questioned  them  and 
asked  them  did  they  not  know  that  martial  law  had  been  proclaimed, 
and  that  he  could  shoot  them  "like  dogs."  As  Coade  turned  away, 
Colthurst  said,  "Bash  him"  and  one  of  the  underling  officers  broke 
his  jaw  bone  with  the  butt  end  of  his  rifle,  knocking  him  senseless. 
Then  Colthurst  whipped  out  his  revolver  and  shot  him  as  he  lay. 
He  was  left  lying  in  his  blood  (the  stain  marking  the  spot  for  sev- 
eral days)  ;  later  he  was  taken  by  the  ambulance  to  the  Barracks, 
where  he  died  that  night  without  ever  regaining  consciousness.  My 
husband  protested  against  this  horrible  murder,  and  was  told  by 
Colthurst  to  say  his  prayers  (Capt.  Colthurst  was  a  very  religious 
man),  as  he  would  likely  be  the  next. 

A  few  yards  further  down  another  murder  was  committed  by 
Capt.  Colthurst,  but  we  have  not  been  able  to  elicit  any  facts.  The 
Simon  report  states,  "The  evidence  of  the  different  witnesses  can 
only  be  reconciled  by  inferring  that  more  than  one  case  of  shooting 
occurred  during  the  progress  of  Capt.  Colthurst's  party."  It  goes 
on,  "None  of  the  evidence  offered  to  us  afforded  any  justification  for 
the  shooting  of  Coade;  it  is,  of  course,  a  delusion  to  suppose  that 
martial  law  confers  upon  an  officer  the  right  to  take  human  life,  and 
this  delusion  had  in  the  present  case  tragic  consequences." 

The  evidence  as  to  the  above  atrocities  was  carefully  omitted  at 
the  military  court-martial  held  in  June  on  Colthurst.  It  was  only 
against  the  strongest  protest  from  the  military  that  Sir  John  Simon 
insisted  on  this  case  being  investigated  at  the  Commission.  We 
have  evidence  that  at  least  two  other  murders  by  Colthurst  later  in 
the  week  were  perpetrated,  but  this  was  ruled  out  at  the  Commission 
as  "not  within  their  scope." 

My  husband  was  then  taken  as  far  as  the  bridge  and  left  by 
Colthurst  in  charge  of  Lieut.  Leslie  Wilson.  Colthurst  said  a  prayer 
over  him  (0  Lord  God,  if  it  shall  please  thee  to  take  this  man's  life, 
forgive  him,  for  Christ's  sake)  and  left  instructions  that  if  his  party 
was  sniped  at  during  their  expedition  that  Skeffington  was  to  be 
shot  forthwith.  Leslie  Wilson  testified  that  he  saw  "nothing 
strange"  in  the  order  and  would  have  carried  it  out,  and  it  was  in 
fact  a  common  practice  with  these  parties  engaged  in  suppressing 
liberty  in  Ireland  to  take  such  "hostages." 

Capt.  Colthurst  then  bombed  Alderman  James  Kelly's  premises 
(they  mistook  him  for  his  namesake  Alderman  Tom  Kelly,  a  Sinn 

19 


Feiner).  They  sacked  the  premises  and  took  prisoners  the  shopmen 
and  two  editors,  Dickson  and  Mclntyre,  who  had  taken  refuge  there. 
They  flung  live  bombs  into  the  house  without  warning  and  wounded 
one  of  the  men.  I  have  seen  the  house;  it  bears  the  marks  of  the 
bullets  and  bombs  yet.  As  there  was  no  resistance  from  the  unhappy 
people,  my  husband  was  escorted  back  alive  to  the  Barracks  with 
the  two  other  editors.  Dickson  was  a  cripple.  He  was  the  editor  of 
"The  Eye-Opener,"  Mclntyre,  editor  of  "The  Searchlight."  By  a 
strange  irony  both  had  been  loyalist  papers  and  Alderman  James 
Kelly  had  helped  to  recruit  for  the  army,  but  owing  to  the  initial 
mistake,  protests  were  useless.  The  soldiers  confused  "The  Search- 
light" with  a  paper  called  "The  Spark"  (a  volunteer  organ)  and 
editors'  lives  were  cheap  during  those  days.  Dead  editors  tell  no 
tales — though  sometimes  their  wives  may.  Again  my  husband  was 
flung  (according  to  some,  still  bound)  into  his  cell.  Whether  he  was 
further  tortured  that  night  I  shall  never  know.  Capt.  Colthurst 
spent,  according  to  himself,  the  rest  of  the  night  in  prayer.  At  three 
o'clock  he  found  a  Bible  text  which  seemed  to  him  an  inspiration — 
from  St.  Luke's — "Those  who  will  not  acknowledge  Me,  go  ye  forth 
and  slay  them."  He  interpreted  Me  to  mean  the  British  Empire, 
the  message  as  a  divine  command. 

The  Murder 

Shortly  before  ten  o'clock  the  next  morning  (April  26th) 
Colthurst  again  demanded  my  husband  from  the  guard,  together 
with  the  two  other  editors.  Lieuts.  Toomey,  Wilson  and  Dobbin 
were  present  in  charge  of  the  guard  with  18  men.  He  stated  that  he 
was  going  to  "shoot  Skeffington  and  the  others,  that  he  thought  'it 
was  the  right  thing  to  do.'  "  They  were  handed  over  accordingly, 
and  the  rest  of  the  story  we  pieced  together  from  the  evidence  of  the 
other  unhappy  civilian  prisoners  who  were  in  the  guardroom  and 
heard  what  was  going  on,  for  the  military  naturally  do  their  best  to 
prevent  anything  being  known. 

It  seems,  according  to  the  account,  that  my  husband  was  taken 
out  from  his  locked  cell  by  Colthurst.  As  he  walked  across  the  yard 
(the  yard  was  only  about  12  feet  long  by  6  feet  wide)  he  was  shot 
in  the  back  without  any  warning  whatever  by  the  firing  squad.  While 
he  lay,  the  two  other  editors  were  marched  out  also  and  murdered  in 
cold  blood  without  warning.  The  other  prisoners  listened  eagerly  the 

20 


while,  and  as  they  heard  volley  after  volley  ring  out,  said,  "Another 
poor  fellow  gone" !  and  thought  their  own  turn  would  be  next.  Then 
(after  the  second  volley)  they  heard  Dobbin  say,  about  my  husband, 
to  Sergeant  Aldridge,  "That  man  is  not  dead."  My  husband  moved 
as  he  lay  on  the  ground.  Dobbin  then  reported  this  fact  to  Colthurst, 
who  gave  orders  to  "finish  him  off."  Another  firing  squad  was  then 
lined  up  and  my  husband's  body  was  riddled  as  he  lay  on  the  ground. 
After  that  the  other  prisoners  heard  washing  and  sweeping  going  on 
for  about  two  hours  and  when  they  were  allowed  into  the  yard  it  still 
bore  the  marks  of  the  murder.  The  wall  was  bloodstained  and  rid- 
dled with  bullets.  No  surgeon  was  called  to  examine  the  bodies ;  one 
stated  that  "about  noon"  (two  hours  later)  he  visited  the  mortuary 
and  they  were  transferred  to  the  mortuary.  Up  to  the  present  mo- 
ment I  have  never  been  able  to  find  out  how  long  my  husband  may 
have  lingered  in  anguish,  or  whether  the  second  volley  did  its  work 
more  effectively  than  the  first. 

The  British  were  careful  to  prevent  my  seeing  the  body  or  hav- 
ing it  medically  examined,  and  later,  when  I  attempted  to  have  an 
inquest  held,  permission  was  refused.  At  eleven  Major  Rosborough 
again  communicated  with  the  garrison  adjutant  at  headquarters  and 
with  Dublin  Castle.  He  was  told — to  bury  the  bodies.  Capt.  Col- 
thurst sent  in  his  report  (as  ordered  by  Rosborough),  but  he  was 
kept  in  command,  and  no  reprimand  made  to  him. 

Other  Murders 

On  the  same  day  Capt.  Colthurst  was  in  charge  of  troops  in 
Camden  street,  when  Councillor  Richard  O'Carroll  surrendered  (one 
of  the  labor  leaders  in  the  Dublin  City  Council).  He  was  marched 
with  his  hands  over  his  head  to  the  back  yard  and  Capt.  Colthurst 
shot  him  in  the  lung.  When  a  soldier  pityingly  asked  was  he  dead, 
Capt.  Colthurst  said,  "Never  mind,  he'll  die  later."  He  had  him 
dragged  out  into  the  street  and  left  there  to  be  later  picked  up  by  a 
bread  van.  Ten  days  later  O'Carroll  died  in  great  agony.  For 
six  days  his  wife  knew  nothing  of  him  and  when  at  last  she  was 
summoned  to  Portobello,  he  could  only  whisper  in  her  ear  his  dying 
statement,  which  she  repeated  to  me.  Three  weeks  after  his  mur- 
der, his  wife  gave  birth  to  a  son.  The  authorities,  as  usual,  refused 
all  inquiry. 

On  the  same  day  Capt.  Colthurst  took  a  boy,  whom  he  suspected 

21 


of  Sinn  Fein  knowledge  and  asked  him  to  give  information.  When 
the  boy  refused,  he  got  him  to  kneel  in  the  street  and  shot  him  in  the 
back  as  he  raised  his  hand  to  cross  himself.  Inquiry  into  this  case 
has  also  been  refused — it  is  but  one  of  the  many. 

My  husband  was  buried  on  Wednesday  night,  secretly — in  the 
Uarracks  yarn — his  body  sewn  in  a  sack. 

My  Search 

Meanwhile,  from  Tuesday  night,  when  he  did  not  return,  I  had 
been  vainly  seeking  him.  All  sorts  of  rumors  reached  me — that  he 
had  been  wounded  and  was  in  a  hospital,  that  he  had  been  shot  by  a 
looter,  that  he  was  arrested  by  the  police.  I  also  heard  that  he  had 
been  executed,  but  this  I  refused  to  believe — it  seemed  incredible.  I 
clung  to  the  belief  that  even  if  he  had  been  condemned  to  die  he 
would  have  been  tried  first,  at  least  before  a  jury,  for  martial  law 
did  not  apply  to  non-combatants — and  that  I  would  be  notified,  as 
were  some  of  the  wives  and  families  of  the  other  executed  men.  Of 
course,  the  reason  of  the  silence  is  now  clear.  It  was  hoped  that  my 
husband  would  "disappear"  as  so  many  others,  that  we  could  never 
trace  his  whereabouts,  and  that  it  would  be  taken  for  granted  that 
he  had  been  killed  in  the  street.  My  husband's  murder  was  but  one 
of  the  many — the  only  difference  being  that  in  his  case  the  murder 
could  not  be  kept  dark.  On  Tuesday,  May  9th  (13  days  after)  Mr. 
Tennant  stated  in  the  House  of  Commons,  in  answer  to  a  question, 
that  "no  prisoner  had  been  shot  in  Dublin  without  a  trial." 

All  Wednesday  and  Thursday  I  inquired  in  vain,  and  on  Friday 
horrible  rumors  reached  me.  I  tried  to  see  a  doctor  connected  with 
the  Barracks,  but  was  stopped  by  the  police,  for  by  this  time  the 
police  had  been  restored  and  were  helping  the  soldiers.  I  was 
watched,  as  I  have  since  been,  carefully  under  police  supervision. 
Houses  were  being  raided  and  pillaged.  Mme.  Markievicz's  house 
was  broken  into  on  Wednesday,  and  all  her  pictures  stolen,  and  other 
valuables  taken  and  the  door  was  left  broken  open.  Whole  streets 
were  ransacked  and  the  inhabitants  terrified  while  the  soldiers  thrust 
their  bayonets  through  the  beds  and  furniture. 

On  Thursday  evening,  about  seven,  I  met  Mrs.  MacDonngh 
(the  wife  of  one  of  the  Irish  prisoners  shot  by  the  firing  squad) 
wheeling  her  two  babies  to  her  mother's  house;  the  soldiers  had 
turned  machine  guns  on  her  house.     Soldiers  sold  their  loot  openly 

22 


in  the  streets — officers  took  "souvenirs."    While  the  volunteers  were 
holding  their  stronghold  their  wives  and  families  were  thus  tortured. 

My  Sister's  Arrest 

On  Friday,  to  allay  my  growing  anxiety,  my  two  sisters,  Mrs. 
Kettle  and  Mrs.  Culhane,  went  to  the  Portobello  Barracks  to  in- 
quire. They  were  at  once  put  under  arrest  and  a  drumhead  court- 
martial  was  had  upon  them.  They  afterwards  identified  the  officer 
who  presided  as  Colthurst.  Lieut.  Beattie  and  other  officers  were 
also  present.  The  crime  they  were  accused  of  was  that  they  were 
"seen  talking  to  Sinn  Feiners"  (to  me,  probably). 

They  were  refused  all  information  by  Capt.  Colthurst,  who  said 
he  knew  nothing  whatever  of  Sheehy  Skeffington,  and  told  them,  "the 
sooner  they  left  the  Barracks  the  better  for  them."  They  were 
marched  off  under  armed  guard,  and  forbidden  to  speak  till  they 
left  the  premises. 

It  being  then  clear  that  we  had  information,  the  next  step  was 
to  try  and  find  my  husband  guilty  on  post  facto  evidence.  That 
afternoon  I  managed  to  see  Coade,  the  father  of  the  murdered  boy. 
I  got  his  name  from  a  doctor — and  he  told  me  that  he  had  seen  my 
husband's  dead  body  with  several  others  in  that  mortuary  when  he 
went  for  his  son.  This  a  priest  afterwards  confirmed,  but  he  could 
give  me  no  other  information. 

I  went  home  shortly  after  six  and  before  seven  was  putting  my 
little  boy  to  bed,  when  the  maid  noticed  soldiers  lining  up  around 
the  house.  She  got  terrified  and  dashed  out  with  Owen  by  the  back 
door.  I  went  to  call  her  back,  for  I  knew  that  the  house  would  be 
guarded  back  and  front,  and  feared  the  boy,  especially,  might  be 
shot  if  seen  running.  When  I  got  to  the  foot  of  the  stairs  a  volley 
was  fired  in  front  of  the  house  at  the  windows,  followed  almost  di- 
rectly by  a  crash  of  glass  which  the  soldiers  shattered  with  the  butt- 
ends  of  their  rifles. 

They  broke  in  simultaneously  all  over  the  house — some  went  on 
the  roof — and  Capt.  Colthurst  rushed  upon  us — the  maid,  Owen  and 
myself — with  a  squad  with  fixed  bayonets,  shouting  "Hands  up!" 
to  the  boy  and  me.  The  boy  gave  a  cry  at  the  sight  of  the  naked 
steel,  and  I  put  my  arm  around  him  and  said,  "These  are  the  de- 
fenders of  women  and  children."  That  steadied  them  a  little.  The 
party  consisted  of  about  forty  men  and  was  in  charge  of  Col.  Allett 

23 


(an  officer  of  29  years'  service),  Capt.  Colthurst  (16  years'  service) 
and  a  junior  officer,  Lieut.  Brown. 

We  were  ordered  all  three  to  be  removed  "under  guard"  to  the 
front  room  and  to  be  shot  if  we  stirred,  while  they  searched  the 
house.  This  was  done:  Soldiers  with  leveled  rifles  knelt  outside  the 
house  ready  to  fire  upon  us,  and  inside  we  were  closely  guarded  by 
men  with  drawn  bayonets.  This  lasted  over  three  hours.  The 
house  was  completely  sacked  and  everything  of  any  value  removed — 
books,  pictures,  souvenirs,  toys,  linen,  and  household  goods.  I  could 
hear  the  officers  jeering  as  they  turned  over  my  private  possessions. 
One  of  the  soldiers  (a  Belfast  man)  seemed  ashamed,  and  said,  "I 
didn't  enlist  for  this.  They  are  taking  the  whole  bloomin'  house 
with  them."  They  commandeered  a  motor  car  in  which  were  women, 
and  made  them  drive  to  the  Barracks  with  the  stuff — ordering  the 
men  to  keep  a  safe  distance  "in  case  of  firing."  They  left  an  armed 
guard  on  the  house  all  night.  Colthurst  brought  my  husband's  keys, 
stolen  from  his  dead  body,  and  opened  his  study  (which  he  always 
kept  locked).  All  my  private  letters,  letters  from  my  husband  to  me 
before  our  marriage,  his  articles,  a  manuscript  play,  the  labor  of  a 
lifetime,  were  taken.  After  endless  application  I  received  back  a 
small  part  of  these,  but  most  of  my  most  cherished  possessions  have 
never  been  returned,  or  any  attempt  made  to  find  them. 

The  regiment  took  with  them  to  Belfast  as  a  "souvenir,"  my 
husband's  stick,  and  an  officer  stole  from  his  dead  body  my  hus- 
band's "Votes  for  Women"  badge.  For  days  my  house  was  open  to 
any  marauder,  as  none  dared  to  come  even  to  board  up  my  windows. 
Capt.  Colthurst  later  falsely  endorsed  certain  papers  found  on  my 
husband's  body. 

On  Monday,  May  1st,  another  raid  was  made  during  my  ab- 
sence, and  this  time  a  little  temporary  maid  was  taken  under  soldiers' 
guard  to  the  Barracks.  She  was  detained  in  custody  for  a  week,  the 
only  charge  against  her  being  that  she  was  found  in  my  house.  Why 
I  was  not  taken,  I  never  knew,  but  one  of  the  officers  (Leslie  Wilson) 
publicly  regretted  "that  they  had  not  shot  Mrs.  Skeffington  while 
they  were  about  it."  It  would  have  saved  them  (and  me)  much 
trouble  if  they  had.  Colthurst  continued  in  charge  of  raiding  parties 
for  several  days. 

24 


Promotion  of  Colthurst 

On  May  1st,  Major  Sir  Francis  Vane,  the  second  in  command 
at  Portobello,  was  relieved  of  his  command  by  Lieut.  Col.  McCam- 
mond,  for  his  persistent  efforts  (unavailing)  to  get  Colthurst  put 
under  arrest.  He  was  told  to  give  up  his  post  (that  of  commander 
of  the  entire  defenses  of  Portobello)  and  hand  it  over  to  Capt. 
Bowen-Colthurst,  who  was  thereby  promoted  six  days  after  the 
murders.  Later  (on  May  9th)  he  was  sent  in  charge  of  a  detach- 
ment of  troops  to  Newry,  and  not  until  May  11th,  the  day  of  Mr. 
Dillon's  speech,  was  he  put  under  "close  arrest."  I  leave  it  to  Ameri- 
can intelligence  to  decide  whether  these  facts  once  proved  before  a 
Royal  Commission  were  consistent  with  the  theory  of  lunacy. 

Sir  Francis  Vane  is  the  only  officer  concerned  who  made  a 
genuine  effort  to  see  justice  done.  He  went  to  Dublin  Castle,  finding 
that  the  Portobello  officers  would  do  nothing.  He  saw  Colonel 
Kinnard  and  General  Friend,  as  well  as  Major  Price  (head  of  the 
Intelligence  Dept.).  All  deprecated  the  "fuss"  and  refused  to  act. 
Major  Price  said,  "Some  of  us  think  it  was  a  good  thing  Sheehy 
Skeffington  was  put  out  of  the  way,  anyhow."  This  was  the 
typical  attitude  of  the  authorities.  On  Sunday  (May  7th), 
also  by  order  of  Colonel  McCammond,  bricklayers  were  brought  to 
the  yard  to  remove  the  blood-stained  bricks,  stained  with  the  blood 
of  my  murdered  husband,  and  carefully  replaced  them  with  new 
bricks. 

Sir  Francis  Vane,  thoroughly  horrified  at  the  indifference  of 
Dublin  Castle  to  murders  committed  by  an  officer  (they  were  busy 
trying  "rebels"  for  "murder"),  crossed  early  in  May  to  London, 
interviewed  the  war  office,  and  on  May  3rd,  saw  Lord  Kitchener  and 
the  latter  was  reported  as  sending  a  telegram  ordering  the  arrest  of 
Colthurst.  This  was  disregarded  by  General  Maxwell,  then  in  com- 
mand in  Dublin.  Instead  of  anything  being  done  to  Colthurst,  the 
only  result  of  Sir  Francis  Vane's  efforts  was  that  he,  himself,  was 
dismissed  from  the  service  ("relegated  to  unemployment")  by  secret 
report  of  General  Maxwell,  deprived  of  his  rank  of  Major  and 
refused  a  hearing  at  the  court-martial,  although  he  had  previously 
been  favorably  mentioned  in  the  dispatches  by  Brigadier  McCono- 
chine,  his  superior  officer,  for  bravery. 

25 


Second  Burial 

On  May  8th,  my  husband's  body  was  exhumed  and  reburied  in 
Glasnevin,  without  my  knowledge.  That  day  I  managed  to  see  Mr. 
Dillon  and  told  him  my  story.  I  never  saw  a  man  more  moved  than 
he  by  the  tragedies  of  Easter  Week.  He  read  my  statement  in  the 
House  of  Commons  on  May  11th,  and  his  wonderful  speech  on  the 
horror  he  had  seen  compelled  Mr.  Asquith  to  cross  at  once  to  Ireland. 
Mr.  Asquith  said  of  my  statement,  "I  confess  I  do  not  and  cannot 
believe  it.  Does  anyone  suppose  that  Sir  John  Maxwell  has  any 
object  in  shielding  officers  and  soldiers,  if  there  be  such,  who  have 
been  guilty  of  such  ungentlemanlike,  such  inhuman  conduct?  It  is 
the  last  thing  the  British  army  would  dream  of!"  I  do  not  blame 
him  for  his  disbelief.  He  went  to  Ireland,  found  every  word  I  said 
was  true,  as  verified  at  the  Commission — he  found  there  other  horrors 
— the  North  Kings  Street  atrocity,  for  instance — surpassing  even 
mine.  Yet  he  did  his  best  *o  help  the  military  to  shield  the  mur- 
derers and  hush  all  inquiries.  In  a  few  short  days  secret  court- 
martials  had  condemned  to  death  no  less  than  sixteen  Irish  leaders — 
whose  crime  was  that  they  had  wished  Ireland  as  free  as  is  your 
country,  a  "free  republic."  Early  in  May  a  Royal  Commission  was 
appointed  to  inquire  into  the  causes  of  the  rebellion,  but  all  inquiry 
was  refused  into  the  atrocities  committed  by  the  troops  while  in 
Dublin, 

COURTMARTIAL 

The  courtmartial  was  presided  over  by  Lord  Cheylesmore  and 
consisted  of  twelve  senior  officers— a  more  wooden  tribunal  it  is  im» 
possible  to  conceive.  All  the  witnesses  were  military,  and  all  were 
drilled  to  tell  a  special  tale.  They  were  sworn,  and  yet  at  many 
points  their  story  later  to  the  Commission  flagrantly  contradicted 
the  previous  one—yet  they  have  never  been  brought  to  book  for 
perjury.  I  was  not  allowed  to  present  evidence.  Mr.  Healy  said 
of  the  courtmartial:  "Never  since  the  trial  of  Christ  was  there  a 
greater  travesty  of  justice."  Its  findings  were  afterwards  com- 
pletely discredited  by  the  Royal  Commission;  the  evidence  was 
doctored  and  all  legal  forms  violated,  the  prosecutor  and  defender 
playing  into  each  other's  hands.  Dr.  Balch,  who  had  refused  to 
certify  Colthurst  insane,  was  not  questioned,  and  he  was  afterwards 
sent  to  Sierra  Leone,  and  would  not  be  produced  at  the  Commission. 

26 


Sir  Francis  Vane  was  not  called,  no  evidence  of  the  other  murders 
was  given  or  of  the  part  played  by  Dublin  Castle  in  cloaking  the 
murderer.  Colthurst  was  under  no  restraint  during  his  trial.  He 
stayed  at  a  well-known  hotel  in  Dawson  street  with  his  family  during 
the  days,  and,  though  found  insane  later,  was  not  shut  up  for  several 
weeks.  Finally,  when  feeling  ran  high,  he  was  transferred  as  a 
"patient"  to  an  asylum  in  England,  and  was  allowed  to  continue  to 
hold  his  rank  as  captain  and  to  draw  half  pay  for  several  months. 
Later  he  was  "retired,"  but  has  not  been  dismissed  from  the  service. 
He  is  detained  "during  the  King's  pleasure"  and  will  be  released 
when  "cured."  As  has  been  the  case  of  the  perpetrator  of  the 
Bachelor's  Walk  murders,  in  July,  1914,  he  will  probably  be  given 
some  important  post  when  this  trouble  blows  over. 

Asquith   Interview 

In  July  I  went  to  London  to  interview  editors  and  members  of 
Parliament  to  force  the  Government  to  administer  justice.  On 
July  19th  I  was  sent  for  by  Mr.  Asquith,  who  had,  with  his  "wait  to 
see"  policy,  been  shuffling  and  evading  a  direct  answer  for  months — 
I  brought  a  witness  with  me,  a  well-known  suffragist,  Miss  Muriel 
Matters.  Mr.  Asquith  saw  me  in  the  room  where  the. Cabinet  meets 
(Downing  street).  The  wily  statesman  explained  to  me  the  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  keeping  his  pledge,  regretted  that  no  adequate 
inquiry  could  be  given.  The  House,  he  said,  would  refuse  a  sworn 
inquiry,  and  that  alone  could  be  satisfactory.  Would  I  be  satisfied 
with  an  inadequate  inquiry,  which  was  "the  best  they  could  do."  I 
told  him  I  would  not  be  satisfied  with  any  inquiry  that  he  told  me  in 
advance  would  be  unsatisfactory  and  inadequate,  and  that  while  I 
must  accept  the  best  he  could  give — I  would  not  be  "satisfied."  I 
said  I  would  take  further  action  if  I  wasn't — for  even  then  I  had 
in  view  a  visit  to  America  to  tell  an  honest  country  what  British 
militarism  could  do.  When  Mr.  Asquith  then  carefully  approached 
the  question  of  "compensation"  in  lieu  of  inquiry — proposals  had 
previously  been  made  to  me,  unofficially,  from  various  sources  (my 
boy's  future  at  stake,  etc.).  I  was  told  that  no  inquiry  could  be 
given — that  the  military  wouldn't  allow  it — but  that  "adequate  and 
even  generous"  compensation  would  be  assured.  Mr.  Asquith  now 
put  this  point  ever  so  delicately  (it  was  clearly  his  object  in  sending 
for  me)  tapping  his  fingers  on  the  green  baize  table — he  sat  with  his 

27 


secretary  at  the  middle — and  my  friend  and  I  at  the  end,  and 
glancing  sideways  at  me,  for  he  never  looked  me  straight  in  the  face 
throughout  the  interview.  He  is  mellow  and  hale,  with  rosy,  chubby 
face  and  silver  hair,  a  Father  Christmas  air  about  him.  He  ex- 
plained that  the  other  injured  people  were  asking  for  compensation, 
would  I  not  consider  it,  too?  He  said  nothing  could  undo  the  past, 
etc.  I  told  him  that  the  only  compensation  I  would  ask  or  take,  was 
the  redemption  of  his  promise,  viz.:  a  full,  public  inquiry  into  my 
husband's  murder. 

I  inquired,  "Were  the  military  blocking  him?"  "No,  no,"  he 
replied,  "the  military  court  inquiry!"  "In  that  case,  Mr.  Asquith," 
I  said,  "will  you  say  yes  or  no?  It  is  time  that  I  had  an  answer." 
He  would  reply  Thursday  to  Mr.  Dillon,  and  so  our  interview  ended. 
He  is  an  able,  astute  politician,  the  ex-Premier,  but  his  pitiful  little 
traps  and  quibbles  and  his  "hush  money"  suggestions  were  hardly 
worthy  of  a  great  statesman. 

He  finally  granted  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  with  Sir  John 
Simon  at  its  head,  and  a  judge  and  well-known  lawyer  to  sit  with 
him.  But  Asquith,  as  usual,  broke  faith  (unbroken  record)  as  to  the 
scope  of  the  inquiry,  by  narrowly  restricting  the  terms  of  reference. 
The  court  could  not  produce  or  examine  Colthurst,  the  chief  culprit, 
because  he  was  in  England — evidence  was  voluntary,  other  atrocities 
were  carefully  ruled  out.  The  Military  had  purposely  scattered 
important  witnesses.  Several  were  at  the  front,  some  had  been 
killed  in  the  interval,  some  were  afraid  of  vengeance. 

The  Military  refused  to  produce  others,  Colonel  Allett  had  died 
mysteriously  in  the  interval, — according  to  some  he  committed  suicide 
in  Belfast  when  Colthurst  was  condemned,  saying,  "The  game  is  up." 
Every  device  was  used  by  the  Government  and  the  Military  to  defeat 
the  ends  of  justice.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all,  the  Inquiry  Report  estab- 
lished many  important  facts — the  promotion  of  Colthurst,  the  failure 
to  take  any  disciplinary  measures  against  the  other  officers,  the  dis- 
missal of  Sir  Francis  Vane,  the  raids  on  my  house  for  incriminatory 
evidence  after  the  murder.  Doubt  was  cast  upon  the  insanity  of 
Colthurst  and  grave  censure  passed  on  the  Military. 

Expose 

As  a  public  expose  the  Commission  had  a  great  effect  and  the 
attitude  of  the  Military  under  the  searching  heckling  of  Mr.  Healy 

28 


and  Sir  John  Simon  showed  them  at  their  worst.  One  officer  actually 
fainted  in  court  and  his  cross-examination  had  to  be  suspended. 
Francis  Sheehy  Skeffington  could  not  have  imagined  any  more  damn- 
ing expose  of  the  militarism  he  detested  and  under  which  he  perished, 
no  writer  of  fiction  could  have  imagined  a  more  harrowing  story  of 
unrelieved  brutality  than  may  be  found  in  the  cold  and  lawyer-like 
language  of  the  Simon  Report.  But  all  these  officers  still  enjoy 
favor.    Major  Price  still  rules  in  Dublin  Castle. 

A  martyr  fights  in  death  more  terribly  than  many  warring  saints. 
He  is  entrenched,  you  cannot  reach  him  with  your  heaviest  shot. 
My  husband  would  have  gone  to  his  death  with  a  smile  on  his  lips, 
knowing  that  by  his  murder  he  had  struck  a  heavier  blow  for  his 
ideals  than  by  any  act  of  his  life.  And  I  am  willing  to  give  him 
up  on  the  altar  of  sacrifice,  for  I  know  that  his  death  will  speak 
trumpet-tongued  against  the  system  that  slew  him. 

Nor  was  it,  as  I  have  shown,  the  one  mad  act  of  an  irresponsible 
officer.  It  was  part  of  an  organized  "pogrom."  We  possess  evi- 
dence, sworn  and  duly  attested,  of  at  least  50  other  murders  of 
unarmed  civilians  or  disarmed  prisoners  (some  boys  and  some 
women)  committed  by  the  soldiers  during  Easter  Week.  The  North 
Staffords  murdered  14  men  in  North  King  street,  and  buried  them  in 
the  cellars  of  their  houses. 

A  coroner's  jury  of  the  city  brought  a  verdict  of  wilful  murder 
against  these  men  who  could  be  identified  (Dublin's  City  Council) 
but  Sir  John  Maxwell  refused  to  give  them  up,  and  they  are  in 
Dublin  at  the  present  moment.  Pits  were  dug  in  Glasnevin  Cemetery 
and  bodies  piled  up  were  carted  off  and  buried  in  a  common  trench. 
In  various  cases  the  soldiers  stated  that  they  were  under  definite 
orders  to  kill  civilians  and  prisoners.  In  Trinity  College  they  so 
boasted. 

Cher  three  hundred  houses  were  looted  and  sacked  in  the 
suburbs  and  the  city.  Thousands  of  men,  hundreds  of  women,  were 
arrested  all  over  the  country  and  deported  in  cattle  boats  to  England, 
some  to  jails,  some  to  internment  camps.  Most  of  these  had  no  part 
whatever  in  the  rising,  but  the  police  and  soldiers  had  a  free  hand  to 
arrest  all,  and  exercised  their  powers  to  the  full.  Time  does  not 
permit  me  to  dwell  any  longer  on  the  treatment  accorded  to  the 
prisoners.  In  Kilmainham,  in  Richmond  and  later  in  England,  they 
were  brutally  ill-treated.      Two  instances,   Mary  O'Loughlin   and 

29 


another, —  but  it  would  need  a  separate  lecture. 

STATE  OF  IRELAND 

Ireland  is  still  under  martial  law,  threatened  with  famine  and 
with  conscription ;  death  by  hunger  or  in  the  trenches.  But  Ireland's 
spirit  was  never  stronger,  never  was  it  more  clearly  shown  that  no 
nation  can  be  held  by  force,  that  the  aspiration  after  liberty  cannot 
be  quelled  by  shot  or  shell. 

The  Volunteers 

A  word  as  to  the  Irish  Republicans.  "Treason  doth  never 
prosper.  What  is  the  reason?  When  treason  prospers,  none  dare 
call  it  treason."  When  the  United  States  of  America  set  up  its 
republic  it  declared  its  independence  of  Great  Britain,  it  happily 
won,  and  maintained  its  independence.  But  if  it  had  lost — would 
its  leaders  find  quicklime  graves?     Surely. 

I  know  the  Irish  Republican  leaders,  and  am  proud  to  call 
Connolly,  Pearse,  Macdonagh,  Plunkett,  O'Rahilly  and  others 
friends — proud  to  have  known  them  and  had  their  friendship.  They 
fought  a  clean  fight  against  terrible  odds — and  terrible  was  the  price 
they  had  to  pay.  They  were  sober  and  God-fearing,  filled  with  a  high 
idealism.  They  had  banks,  factories,  the  General  Post  Office,  the 
lower  courts,  their  enemies'  strongholds  for  days  in  their  keeping, 
yet  bankers,  merchants  and  others  testified  as  to  the  scrupulous  way 
in  which  their  stock  was  guarded.  A  poet  truly  said,  "Your  dream, 
not  mine,  And  yet  the  thought,  for  this  you  fell,  Turns  all  life's 
water  into  wine."  Their  proclamation  gave  equal  citizenship  to 
women — beating  all  records — except  that  of  the  Russian  Revolu- 
tionists. 

It  is  the  dreamers  and  the  visionaries  that  keep  hope  alive  and 
feed  enthusiasm — not  the  statesmen  and  politicians.  Sometimes  it  is 
harder  to  live  for  a  cause  than  to  die  for  it.  It  would  be  a  poor 
tribute  to  my  husband  if  grief  were  to  break  my  spirit.  It  shall  not 
do  so.  I  am  not  here  just  to  harrow  your  hearts  by  a  passing  thrill, 
to  feed  you  on  horrors  for  sensation's  sake.  I  want  to  continue  my 
husband's  work  so  that  when  I  meet  him  some  day  in  the  Great 
Beyond,  he  will  be  pleased  with  my  stewardship. 

The  lesson  of  the  Irish  Rising  and  its  suppression  is  that  our 
small  nation,  Ireland,  has  a  right  also  to  its  place  in  the  sun.     We 

30 


look  to  the  United  States  particularly  to  help  us  in  this  matter.  The 
question  of  Ireland  is  not,  as  suggested  by  England,  "A  domestic 
matter."  It  is  an  international  one,  just  as  the  case  of  Belgium, 
Serbia  and  other  small  nationalities  is.  We  want  our  case  to  come 
up  at  the  Peace  Conference,  if  not  before — to  the  international  trib- 
unal for  settlement. 

The  United  States  Government  has  declared  that  it  is  entering 
this  war  for  the  democratization  of  Europe.  We  do  not  want  democ- 
racy to  stop  short  of  the  Irish  sea,  but  to  begin  there.  If  Great 
Britain  is  in  good  faith  in  this  matter,  she  can  begin  now,  by  freeing 
our  small  nation,  and  this  can  be  done  without  the  shedding  of  a 
single  drop  of  American  blood,  and  the  whole  world  would  applaud 
the  deed. 

We  look,  therefore,  to  America  to  see  that  her  allies  live  up  to 
their  professions  and  that  the  end  of  the  war  will  see  all  small 
nations  of  Europe  free.  As  my  husband  said,  in  an  article  in  the 
Century  Magazine,  February,  1916,  on  a  "Forgotten  Small  Nation- 
ality," "Shall  peace  bring  freedom  to  Belgium,  to  Poland,  perhaps 
to  Finland  and  Bohemia,  and  not  to  Ireland?"  It  is  for  America 
to  see  that  Ireland  is  not  excluded  from  the  blessings  of  true  democ- 
racy and  freedom.  In  this  respect  America  will  be  but  paying  back 
the  debt  she  owes  to  Ireland.  In  the  day  of  her  struggle  for  inde- 
pendence, before  she  set  up  her  republic,  she  was  aided  by  Irish 
citizens — many  of  whom  gave  their  lives  for  her  freedom.  And  in 
the  Civil  War  thousands  of  Irishmen  died  that  your  negroes  might 
be  free  men.  The  record  of  the  Fighting  69th  of  New  York  is  famous 
in  your  history ;  it  was  a  regiment  of  Roman  Catholic  Irish  who  were 
wiped  out  so  that  the  regiment  disappeared  for  a  time  till  it  could 
be  practically  recruited  entirely  afresh,  and  to-day  it  Is  allowed  to 
keep  Its  name  of  (the  69  N.  Y.  N.  G.)  in  parenthesis  after  the  new 
name  given  it  in  drafting  it  into  the  Federal  army  for  service  in 
France,  the  165th  Infantry  of  the  N.  Y.  National  Guard  Army.  It 
is  for  their  descendants,  the  beneficiaries  of  those  old  wars  of  yours 
for  freedom  in  '76  and  1861,  now  to  pay  back  that  debt,  and  to  help 
us  set  up  an  Irish  republic,  as  independent  of  Great  Britain  as  is 
your  own. 

At  the  end  of  the  war  we  hope  to  see  a  "United  Europe"  on  the 
model  of  your  own  United  States,  where  each  state  is  free  and  inde- 

31 


pendent,  yet  all  are  part  of  a  great  federation.  We  want  Ireland  to 
belong  to  this  united  Europe,  and  not  to  be  a  vassal  of  Great  Britain, 
a  province  of  the  British  Empire,  governed  without  consent.  Unless 
the  United  States  is  as  whole-heartedly  in  favor  of  the  freedom  of 
Ireland  as  she  is  for  the  emancipation  of  Belgium,  she  cannot  be 
true  to  her  own  principles.  Her  honor  is  involved  and  we  look  par- 
ticularly to  the  Irish  in  America  to  remember  the  claims  of  the  land 
of  their  fathers,  when  the  day  of  reckoning  comes. 

I  shall  conclude  by  quoting  from  William  Rooney's  poem, 
"Dear  Dark  Head,"  which  embodies  in  poetic  form  Ireland's  life- 
long dream  for  freedom.  Speaking  of  the  men  who  died  for 
Ireland,  he  says: 

"And  though  their  fathers'  fate  be  theirs,  shall  others 
With  hearts  as  faithful  still  that  pathway  tread 
Till  we  have  set,  Oh  Mother  Dear  of  Mothers, 
A  nation's  crown  upon  thy  Dear,  Dark  Head?" 


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